Mother Abbess Quotes in The Sound of Music (1965)

Sister Margaretta: Reverend Mother, I have sinned.

Sister Berthe: I, too, Reverend Mother.

Mother Abbess: What is this sin, my children?

[the nuns look at each other, then reveal from under their robes the distributor and coil they have removed from the Germans' cars]

Mother Abbess: Maria, these walls were not meant to shut out problems. You have to face them. You have to live the life you were born to live.

Maria: I can't seem to stop singing wherever I am. And what's worse, I can't seem to stop saying things - anything and everything I think and feel.

Mother Abbess: Some people would call that honesty.

Maria: Oh, but it's terrible, Reverend Mother.

Maria: Reverend Mother, I'm sorry. I couldn't help myself. -The hills were beckoning and... the sky was so blue today... and everything was so green and fragrant, I had to be a part of it. The Untersberg led me higher like it wanted me to go through the clouds.

Mother Abbess: Suppose darkness had come and you were lost?

Maria: Mother, I could never be lost up there. That's my mountain. I was brought up on it. It was the mountain that led me to you. When I was a child, I would come down and climb a tree... and look in your garden. I'd see the sisters at work and hear them sing... Which brings me to another transgression, Reverend Mother. I was singing out there today.

Mother Abbess: Only in the abbey do we have rules about postulants singing.

Maria: I can't stop wherever I am. Worse, I can't seem to stop saying things. Everything I think and feel.